OCR Nationals reaccredited onto the NQF

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30/04/2010

We are pleased to announce the reaccreditation of OCR Nationals qualifications onto the NQF.

Summary of key facts:

All Nationals (with the exception of Levels 1 & 3 ICT, Levels 2 & 3 Art and Design, Level 2 Business and Level 2 Science) have had their accreditation extended until December 2012. Certification will be available until December 2013 (Level 1), December 2014 (Level 2), December 2015 (Level 3).

ICT Levels 1 & 3, Levels 2 & 3 Art and Design, Level 2 Business and Level 2 Science have been accredited in their current form until 2011, with a view to continuation to 2012 and beyond. The timescales on any revisions to these qualifications will be made available shortly.

Level 2 ICT Nationals are the only qualifications which change this autumn. The revised qualifications will be available from August 2010, and the revised units are available now.

ICT 2 has changed in the following ways:

Same unit titles and essential content as before, but with extra clarity and explicitness in the assessment criteria.

A change to the number of units required in each qualification, in order to maintain the equivalency with ICT GCSEs and maintain the Nationals' school attainment points.

In order to provide a smaller qualification for those who wish to take the Mandatory unit and one Option C unit, a new Short Course equivalent qualification of 60 glh has been developed and approved.

Registration cut-off for existing specification is 31 July 2010.

Teaching should remain the same across the cohort regardless of whether candidates are registered on the new or old qualifications.

Greg Watson, OCR Chief Executive Officer said: "Teachers have told us about their success stories with OCR Nationals and how these qualifications have engaged students in ways that other qualifications haven't.

"This is at the heart of OCR Nationals and we believe it is important to retain the unique features that make it so popular with teachers and students alike.

"Our original intention was to develop OCR Nationals on the QCF. However during the development process it became clear that this would involve substantial changes and undermine the intrinsic value of these qualifications. We were also aware we needed to respond to centres wanting to make decisions on their curriculum and so a decision was taken to apply for an extension of Nationals accreditation on the NQF, which has been accepted."

Greg added: "We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the delay in keeping centres up to date on our progress while extensive discussions continued, but, with something this important, we needed to take the most responsible course of action and wait until we were certain of the outcome. Now, with changes kept to a minimum, we hope that you enjoy continuing to teach the OCR Nationals qualification."

For further information, please visit our OCR Nationals and OCR Nationals 2010 pages, contact us on 02476 851 509 (Monday to Friday 0800-1730) or email us at vocational.qualifications@ocr.org.uk.